


Welcome

by Kes



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 16:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3944176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kes/pseuds/Kes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scene: Bruce’s laboratory in Stark Tower. It pulses and gleams with life, all centred on the cradle/sarcophagus in the centre. All of those in the room are gathered about it and the screens above it, staring.</p><p>A vision has been had, and now must come to life.</p><p>[For what Thor saw, see <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3824563">Strings</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3913282/chapters/8759743">Hidden resonances</a>, but they're not necessary.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome

The scene: Bruce’s laboratory in Stark Tower. It pulses and gleams with life, all centred on the cradle/sarcophagus in the centre. All of those in the room are gathered about it and the screens above it, staring.

Tony Stark himself is not here. Like every capable hacker and technician the world over, he is engaged in a running defence of the digital world – and being kept as far away as the rest of the Avengers can reasonably keep him from the campaign against Ultron’s physical power and physical plans.

Those that are here are engaged in a bitter argument. Bruce Banner, protective of the central lab control, protests; he is a doctor, and whatever is in that cradle is alive. Behind him, on the monitor, Helen Cho speaks from a hospital bed. She is hurt, haunted-looking, but she knows her own work. The body she made, she says, was intended to live and so she had made it. Perhaps it is already of Ultron, perhaps it is not – but it lives.

Clint Barton, voice raised, not prepared to take the risk – no matter Ultron’s progress in affecting the being, it has the gem from the sceptre at its head. Ultron was bad enough, a murderbot with an internet connection, but this one has a mind control artefact implanted in it. As Avengers, they have a duty, he says, a duty to make the hard choices. A duty not to release horror on the world, Pietro Maximoff adds with the sting of sarcasm heavy on his voice.

From Natasha Romanoff, a voice of dissent, a third option; there are more urgent things than this being’s fate. When Ultron is dealt with then they can decide what risks they dare run for the sake of a life of unknown future. With her is Steve Rogers, who reacts fast enough to Pietro’s movement of assault on the laboratory to block him from pushing Bruce. Pietro laughs at him. He had said he would value their contribution – was he now revealed as what he was, a mask for the face of those that cause disaster and never pay?

Wanda Maximoff has not spoken yet. She is perceiving. The fear that chokes Clint’s words, she knows. The terrible, trembling uncertainty within Bruce, she knows, and the sense of trapped responsibility radiating from Steve. Natasha’s deep empathy with Clint’s fear, and simultaneously with the being made in the image of horror, she feels almost as a tug on her own heart. And of course Pietro, her brother, what he feels is an open book to her, the way his emotions hurl themselves around his heart and his fear and rage and protectiveness collide. Her own are tightly coiled, tense springs that wait and quiver. Below such a cloud, the tiny flickerings from the being in the cradle are nearly drowned – but not quite. And beyond that, a thunder – she snaps out a warning.

He comes through Stark’s landing platform, the doors hurtling aside at a flicker of lightning, and lands at the foot of the cradle. The being must live, Thor says. He smells of sea salt and lightning and one of his eyes is red with blood. He has had a vision. The being is the key to victory against Ultron and the battles to come.

Pietro is the first to react. With Steve’s arm gone slack on his, the lab is open to him – Wanda makes an involuntary movement of restraint, but all is dark now. You are an alien, he says. It is not for you to give us orders.

Before he answers, Thor places his hammer atop the cradle and clasps the handle. Slowly, one by one, the life support mechanisms on it flicker back to life and Wanda can feel the tentative outreach of the being within once more. It is alive, she says flatly. It lives. It is frightened and in pain, brother. Within, she adds, like you.

The silence draws on. Natasha finds the first of the plugs Pietro pulled, and a strip of light illuminates the renewed connection to Helen Cho.

Into it Thor speaks. None understand what he says precisely, but most understand enough. Words from the future about this being standing against Ultron, and then preventing the convergence of Stones in a hand clasped around the world. Its creation by many hands – if he must, he says, he will bring it to full life alone. But he does not think it wise.

In the end the argument is not long. Thor’s words are heavy with determination and wisdom, and his explanations make enough sense to Wanda, to Helen and to Bruce that they are soon persuaded. After all, Bruce says, one of the main problems Ultron faced was becoming active alone, with more protocols and programming than care.

Once the decision is made the preparation begins. It is complex – the work of many hands. For Ultron’s sense of purpose, they substitute a sense of personhood. Clint points out that like a child, they must learn and grow, but in seconds; they scrap protocols for a safe structure for them to do so. Natasha takes the computer console, chewing her lip. That which is born of harm need not live by it. Among her other tasks, she runs what Thor had brought on a battered green memory stick from Jane; what little she had on the control of Infinity Stones within the body. Bruce and Helen work on the biological side, priming and readying the body and the brain. The lab is reordered around the needs of the moment, Pietro’s speed and Steve’s strength vital, and like the others they contribute their thoughts. Wanda tentatively reaches out to the new mind within the being, and Thor keeps talking to them, standing ready with Mjollnir to provide the power surge.

You have a little of my skill, she says to him in a quieter moment. Every time he talks, she can feel it. This is how we speak, he explains. The preparation runs on, and the mind grows stronger and stronger, interacting with Wanda and Natasha and Thor, even Bruce and Helen. They are nearly ready. At last, Bruce gives the nod.

Everyone ducks for cover as Thor brings the lightning down with a roar. It crackles in from outside, touching nothing but the points Steve and Pietro put in place; his control is rigid. They hold on.

Six different monitors and people sense the moment the being wrenches itself away from them and pushes the lid from the cradle aside, and all of them yell for Thor to stop. The lightning drops away, and the red person, tall, androgynous, laced with green and gold, hovers out, staring around at them. Silence falls.

As seems almost inevitable now, Thor is the first to speak. The word he says is “Welcome.”


End file.
